The Fuzz: I Love You For All Seasons & I Love You For All Seasons (instrumental)
From 7″ (Calla, 1970) and The Fuzz (Calla, 1971)
Also on Art Laboe’s Dedicated To You Vol. 2
This is a joint Black Label and Private Reserve posting since I was initially introduced to the song via the Black Label Collection and then, absolutely coincidentally, found the 45 while record shopping the other day. The Fuzz were a short-lived female vocal group out of Washington D.C. and were initially called the Passionettes (how did they go from that to The Fuzz?) Veritable one-hitters wonders, they scored a top 10 hit with “I Love You For All Seasons” but within three songs, their career was over. Just like that.
This song opens beautifully: dark and funky but then swings into sweet soul. The Fuzz’s vocal harmonies breeze in nicely, especially Seila Young’s lead – she’s not more distinguished than any number of other female soulsters of the time but nonetheless, her voice is easy on the ears. Songwriting-wise – I did find this song just a little inane. Given: most love songs are incredibly inane but the Fuzz force the whole “seasons” simile just a LITTLE too hard. Perhaps they should be have been more abstract and less literal, especially with lines like, “I love you with the gentleness of a falling lead on an autumn day/but most of all/I love you with the briskness of a winter/when the snow comes out to stay.” Not mad corny but still…
What’s interesting is that the flipside of the Calla 45 features an instrumental version of the song – certainly not unheard of in 1970 but at the very least, uncommon.
chatter